Soft Centre by Iko Chérie

Soft Centre is the new album by Iko Chérie, the solo project of French-born, London-based multi-instrumentalist Marie Merlet. She blends dub-inflected textures, pop tinged vocals, reverb-drenched guitars, Casio drones, and warm experimental noises – creating her own intimate, fragile sound. 

Self-produced and largely performed by Merlet, the album grew from an introspective process, with many sketches recorded in transit between tours. The result is a deeply personal work, balancing light and dark in a Lynchian dream-pop haze. Songs such as We Smoke That Peace Pipe and Bilbao shimmer between vulnerability and resilience, while the single Ghosted Ghosters of the Holy G captures the immediacy of a one-take dub bass. Some pieces retain the quality of improvised snapshots (Intelligent Women, Half a Metaphor) while others reveal her meticulous production process and songwriting craft (Tears in the Sea, Luciférine). Merlet defines Soft Centre as alive in radical tenderness, unguarded, open, and vivid.

Influenced by Clarice Lispector’s prose, Diane di Prima’s poetry and Rachel Carson’s environmentalist writing, as well as Marie’s fascination with a vintage Roland Space Echo, the album is an invitation to connection that she describes as “... hopefully a meditation into healing.” 

A versatile musician trained in classical piano, jazz, and electroacoustic composition, Merlet has long moved between different worlds of sound. She has worked with Laetitia Sadier in Monade, performs with Gina Birch (The Raincoats), Malphino, Yama Warashi, and several other groups, she recently appeared on the latest Stereolab album. 

Her debut solo LP, Dreaming On (Elefant Records, 2015), revealed her singular melodic instincts; with Soft Centre she ventures further inward, shaping her own distinctive voice in experimental pop.

“Through an unseen threshold lies a room of warmth, stitched with melodies of quiet hope"
Valentina Magaletti

“Marie Merlet aka Iko Chérie has landed new music of a divine nature. Divine because it speaks of the Ocean, it speaks of witches, it speaks of justice and things unseen, it speaks to sensitive people who know that there is importance in telling our truth and making a just noise that may find its echo in the dark, amplified by the atoms of resonance, coming to life through a song with a wholesome story.”
Laetitia Sadier

“Iko Chérie has the soundtrack for your dreams. A soft and warm embrace that invites us to navigate this world with an open heart.”
Coco Maria

Iko Chérie is experimental pop made in London by French artist Marie Merlet who feels most at home in dub textures and analogue noises. Her world is one of woozy incantations, Casio drones, reverb drenched guitars, ethereal flutes and gleaned spoken word samples processed through tape delay.

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